Observing many researchers using the same data and hypothesis reveals a hidden universe of uncertainty.

This study explores how researchers' analytical choices affect the reliability of scientific findings. Most discussions of reliability problems in science focus on systematic biases. We broaden the lens to emphasize the idiosyncrasy of conscious and unconscious decisions that researchers make during data analysis.

Depressed during the depression: has the economic crisis affected mental health inequalities in Europe? Findings from the European Social Survey (2014) special module on the determinants of health.

Background: Economic crises constitute a shock to societies with potentially harmful effects to the mental health status of the population, including depressive symptoms, and existing health inequalities.

Methods: With recent data from the European Social Survey (2006–14), this study investigates how the economic recession in Europe starting in 2007 has affected health inequalities in 21 European nations. Depressive feelings were measured with the CES-D eight-item depression scale.

In-Work Poverty and Self-Rated Health in a Cohort of Working Germans: A Hybrid Approach for Decomposing Within-Person and Between-Persons Estimates of In-Work Poverty Status.

In this study, we investigated whether self-rated health (SRH) can be predicted by in-work poverty and how between-persons and within-person differences in the poverty status of people who are working contribute to this relationship. We used a logistic random-effects model designed to test within-person and between-persons differences with data from a nationally representative German sample with 19 waves of data collection (1995-2013) to estimate effects of between-persons and within-person differences in working poverty status on poor SRH. Interactions by age and sex were tested, and models controlled for sociodemographic, socioeconomic, and work-related characteristics.

The Intrinsic Estimator, Alternative Estimates, and Predictions of Mortality Trends: A Comment on Masters, Hummer, Powers, Beck, Lin, and Finch.

In this article, we discuss a study by Masters et al. (2014), published in Demography. Masters and associates estimated age, period, and cohort (APC) effects on U.

The Non-uniqueness Property of the Intrinsic Estimator in APC Models.

This article explores an important property of the intrinsic estimator that has received no attention in literature: the age, period, and cohort estimates of the intrinsic estimator are not unique but vary with the parameterization and reference categories chosen for these variables. We give a formal proof of the non-uniqueness property for effect coding and dummy variable coding. Using data on female mortality in the United States over the years 1960-1999, we show that the variation in the results obtained for different parameterizations and reference categories is substantial and leads to contradictory conclusions.